Sunday, May 11, 2014

I Really Do Like Lily of the Valley, really...

Some of my earliest flower memories are of my grandfather's patch of lily of the valley. I loved the little bell-shaped flowers and the fragrance. The large patch, probably not as big as I remember, seemed like a fairy forest.
I was happy to see all the lily of the valley at our new house; that is until I tried to dig through it to plant something in the front flower bed. There was an impenetrable mat of 6 inch thick roots going 30-40 feet down the bed. I want to move some of the perennials from other garden areas and add some of my own favorites. But there was no way I could plant anything in the front bed.
Enter the new tractor. Alan spent a few hours digging out the lily of the valley mats. If we had wanted we could have peeled up the mat in one long roll, but we needed to shake off a lot of the soil. We put some mats along the stream and the rest in the woods. Now I can plant!

I was able to salvage some daffodils that needed dividing anyway.
The rest of the front gardens are looking very colorful. Azaleas next!